Annual Report 2023/24

Healthwatch Kingston upon Thames report on its key achievements for 2023/24.  It:

• Influenced adult social care and safeguarding across Kingston and London through its Making Safeguarding Personal work. The Kingston Safeguarding Voices group became a formal committee of the Kingston Safeguarding Adults Board, and its lived-experience approach was adopted as part of safeguarding improvement activity across London.
• Secured improvements to bereavement support following its earlier bereavement services report. This led to Kingston Hospital recruiting a Bereavement Support Practitioner, the creation of a local bereavement information hub, and additional funding to expand the work across South West London. 
• Ensured Kingston residents influenced the London Ambulance Service’s 2023–2028 strategy, with local evidence helping shape commitments on call answering times, urgent clinical assessments, public communications and sustainability. 
• Amplified the voices of disadvantaged and seldom-heard communities through its Including Communities and Including Digitally Excluded Communities projects, engaging refugees, asylum seekers, people experiencing homelessness and digitally excluded residents. Findings informed Kingston’s Joint Strategic Needs Assessment and wider health inequalities work. 
• Influenced improvements in mental health services through two independent evaluations of community mental health transformation projects, helping support service development and quality improvement.
• Helped raise concerns about NHS dentistry and medicine shortages, escalating local evidence on dental access and ADHD medication shortages to national bodies and contributing to wider calls for service improvements.
• Delivered Enter and View visits to a care home and Kingston Hospital, producing 37 recommendations in total. The care home acted on all requested actions arising from the visit.